Antibiotics show free market failure

[Seth]

Reference : New Scientist, 24 May 2014, page 10


The world is on the verge of a disaster due to the progressive failure of antibiotics to control disease. Antibiotic resistance is growing at a great pace, and there are now disease causing bacteria resistant to any antibiotic.

The only way to halt this disaster is to develop new antibiotics, and lots of them. But to do so is not cheap. Each new drug will cost something like $ 1 billion to develop.

So why are the big drug companies not doing it? It is because there are a number of antibiotics being sold cheaply, due to being out of patent. The drug companies would have to sell any new antibiotic cheaply also, to compete, and they make more money by developing drugs in other areas, where there are no constraints on selling price. In 1990, 18 big drug companies were working on new antibiotics, but now, when they are more vital than ever, only 5 of those companies are still doing antibiotic research.

The free market has failed to supply new antibiotics, and millions of people who will die of diseases caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria will pay the price.

The only way around this impasse is to use an approach that does not depend on the free market. One way is to use subsidies, by governments, to get drug companies back into the business of developing antibiotics. Another way is to set up mega million dollar prizes, to be paid to those companies.

European drug companies are open to these ideas, but American drug companies and the American government are not.

This is a clear example of the failure of the free market to meet human needs.

Depends on which humans you're talking about...those with weak immune systems who succumb to such infections or the genetically superior who do not.

Personally, I'd call it a triumph of evolution and a free-market success. It clears the way for new generations of disease-resistant humans while avoiding the massive and unnecessary costs of providing antibiotics to the unfit.

Adapt or die.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

Depends on which humans you're talking about...those with weak immune systems who succumb to such infections or the genetically superior who do not.

The mask slips, and we see the horrible creature underneath...

[MrJonno]

I think Mr Diabetes No Children Seth is trolling a little bit, as his fitness is about the same level as my castrated cat

[pErvinalia]

Seth wrote:

Depends on which humans you're talking about...those with weak immune systems who succumb to such infections or the genetically superior who do not.

The mask slips, and we see the horrible creature underneath...

I've known it for years. That's why I don't debate with him any more. Hateful selfish individual, who masks his hate in a retarded ideology that most students give up when they hit 21.

[MrJonno]

I've known it for years. That's why I don't debate with him any more. Hateful selfish individual, who masks his hate in a retarded ideology that most students give up when they hit 21.

That's a bit harsh on 21 year old students, most of which are a bit commie and naive that communism will make the world a better place.

21 year old libertarian's are just proud to be complete cunts

[Strontium Dog]

...The only way to halt this disaster is to develop new antibiotics, and lots of them. But to do so is not cheap. Each new drug will cost something like $ 1 billion to develop.

So why are the big drug companies not doing it? It is because there are a number of antibiotics being sold cheaply, due to being out of patent. The drug companies would have to sell any new antibiotic cheaply also, to compete...

This article is blatantly self-contradictory.

We need new antibiotics because the old ones have stopped working.

So if the old antibiotics which are out of patent no longer work, then in what bizarro world would they be able to out-compete new antibiotics that actually work?

The idea that there is no money in developing new antibiotics is therefore laughable.

[Clinton Huxley]

As soon as "celebrities" start to die from infections caught during plastic surgery, you'll see well-funded pressure groups pushing pharma and government to respond.

[JimC]

...The only way to halt this disaster is to develop new antibiotics, and lots of them. But to do so is not cheap. Each new drug will cost something like $ 1 billion to develop.

So why are the big drug companies not doing it? It is because there are a number of antibiotics being sold cheaply, due to being out of patent. The drug companies would have to sell any new antibiotic cheaply also, to compete...

This article is blatantly self-contradictory.

We need new antibiotics because the old ones have stopped working.

So if the old antibiotics which are out of patent no longer work, then in what bizarro world would they be able to out-compete new antibiotics that actually work?

The idea that there is no money in developing new antibiotics is therefore laughable.

Explain, then, why fewer are being brought onto the market now...

And your reasoning is false. The old antibiotics continue to sell (at least for the moment) because they still work in many cases. New antibiotics are specifically needed to combat the resistant pathogenic bacteria, whose numbers, worryingly, are on the rise.

[JimC]

As soon as "celebrities" start to die from infections caught during plastic surgery, you'll see well-funded pressure groups pushing pharma and government to respond.

Can we vote for our favourite celebrities to be the first to succumb?

[klr]

It's not a "free market" failure

Actually, it is, at least in part, a free market failure. MiM mentioned Thalidomide. That drug was advertised among other things to prevent morning sickness. 10,000 babies were born with malformations in their hearts and other organs as well as limbs. Half of them died because of them. The survivors had to cope with such features as missing or grossly malformed arms and legs, and these features were actually inherited by some members of the next generation. Investigations of this massive disaster revealed that the pharmaceutical company that developed the drug basically neglected to test the drug before marketing it. It was clearly a case of minimising cost in order to maximise profit. This is truly a market failure.

Seeing that private enterprise cannot be trusted to do the right thing, regulations were drawn up to prevent a recurrence of this sort of thing. Of course this increased the cost of developing new drugs hugely, but pharmaceutical companies were not deterred. Their bean counters worked out that having to spend a billion dollars on designing a new product does not prevent raking in billions of dollars in profit just the same. It is only since not even a billion dollar development budget could overcome the problem of mutation by bacteria that we can speak of a scientific failure.

By the way, the opening post quotes nothing from the New Scientist article at all. It's MrJonno's interpretation and includes some serious distortions. If you aree interested in reading the actual article, click on this link.

There was a very good documentary on the BBC recently about Thalidomide. Interestingly, one country where it was not allowed to be prescribed (despite intense lobbying) was USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Ol ... halidomide

Reading between the lines, it seems that the refusal was mostly down to one determined and principled federal employee. It could have been very different.

[Strontium Dog]

Explain, then, why fewer are being brought onto the market now...

Presumably, because the old ones still work:

And your reasoning is false. The old antibiotics continue to sell (at least for the moment) because they still work in many cases.

And there we go.

New antibiotics are specifically needed to combat the resistant pathogenic bacteria, whose numbers, worryingly, are on the rise.

And once the effectiveness of the old antibiotics reaches a sufficiently low level, there will surely be a ready market for new, more effective ones.

[JimC]

Stontium Dog wrote:

And once the effectiveness of the old antibiotics reaches a sufficiently low level, there will surely be a ready market for new, more effective ones.

Trouble is, we need them right now. The current level of corporate research indicates new ones will not be coming on stream any time soon, so, it is a market failure.

Are you working on the principle that there is some magic feature of free markets which means they are always the optimum method to solve any problem?

I'm the first to concede that there are many situations where a free market leads to optimum situations. Currently, producing new antibiotics is not such a situation.

[pErvinalia]

Explain, then, why fewer are being brought onto the market now...

Presumably, because the old ones still work:

And your reasoning is false. The old antibiotics continue to sell (at least for the moment) because they still work in many cases.

And there we go.

New antibiotics are specifically needed to combat the resistant pathogenic bacteria, whose numbers, worryingly, are on the rise.

And once the effectiveness of the old antibiotics reaches a sufficiently low level, there will surely be a ready market for new, more effective ones.

Free market magic!

[Clinton Huxley]

Ah, yes , the new, more effective antibiotics that the pharma companies will magick out of thin air once a sufficient number of people are dying to make them profitable. There's fuck all research being done, bringing a product to market takes years and most compounds never make it. Some that do are a bit rubbish, like Tamiflu.

[Hermit]

Ah, yes , the new, more effective antibiotics that the pharma companies will magick out of thin air once a sufficient number of people are dying to make them profitable. There's fuck all research being done, bringing a product to market takes years and most compounds never make it. Some that do are a bit rubbish, like Tamiflu.

Free market or scientific failure (I think it's actually a combination of both) aside, I prefer the current state of affairs to those of the past. If you disagree, Clinton, please return to the Crimean war of 1853. Nurse Nightingale will keep you in as good health as she can.